Friday, April 30, 2010

parcelled consciousness

My husband and I were talking the other day, and I came to the realization that the way his brain is set up and the way mine is set up are two very different things. Which I would expect, because of gender differences. However, I conducted a very general, uncontrolled and nonscientific study over the last few weeks where I've learned that perhaps my brain is the abnormal one.
For instance-
I have a hard time visualizing anything. For me, day dreaming is work. I spend most of my time right here, right now. If I'm bored, I count things, or try to sketch something in the room, or draw a person that I can think about in my fuzzy visual frame. The way I recall people appears to have nothing to do with the way I last saw them, instead focusing on a moment that they were truly beautiful or ugly to me. I rarely fantasize.

I don't hear my own voice reading, inside my head, as I go through a book. I don't know if it's because I started reading before I had a really firm grasp of language, or if I'm just wired wrong. Either way, my reading speed is something like 750 words a minute, according to an internet source where you control the speed of the words and increase it until you just barely can read it. Reading is one of the view times that my imagination kicks in just fine, supported by the print and concentration. I lose myself and the world around me as I fall into a book.

I can't picture my brain as a rose garden, or as filing cabinets, or as hallways with rooms of storage. It's just my brain.
It's full of music, all of the time. and the way that sunshine feels. My proprioception is rather good, and my sense of space. I have a pretty good memory, but only when something is important to me. I have a hard time remembering faces or names, but not personalities or hugs.
I love to touch things, because I remember touch best of all.

and I'm fascinated by the fact that this is not the way that other people experience the world. Everyone knows that each has a unique experience, blah blah blah ect- but I want to know how you see the world, and why it's different, and what you remember.
How is your world made?

1 comment:

  1. This is really cool Alicia! I think it's awesome that you are aware of your "inner-workings".

    It's going to take some thought, but I've decided to respond to this in my own blog :)

    ReplyDelete